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Comment by josefresco | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry to bring this into the discussion (ducks), but does it really matter that this guy is white? Is he the first white, unsigned musician to hit #1?

I get that "white" rappers for the hip-hop ignorant are somewhat of a novelty but come on ... linkbait headline at it's worst IMHO.

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Honestly, I agree with you. When I submitted the story to HN the title was "First unsigned artist in modern history to hit #1 on U.S. Charts" but HN changed it to the title on the blog. I wanted to highlight why I was posting it in the first place. Race can play an important part of a story but this time it kind of takes the focus off of the important part.

This isn't the first time an HN editor's change has made a post's title less relevant to the HN readership[1].

I'm really tired of it, but since it's all done behind the scenes, I don't know how to productively comment on it or suggest that they stop doing it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4994745 (and that link's parent: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4993953)

If it is the title of the article how does that make it less relevant?

I think at times a different title may serve as a way for the poster to convey some relevant and appropriate commentary on why it is being posted.

Exactly!

Only pedants don't understand this.

Pointing out that he's white is a nod to his status as a dark horse. He is one of the least likely people to disrupt this genre/industry through success. Simply by looking at the statistics of who becomes successful, chart-topping rappers, we can see that it's very unlikely for a white guy to be successful at this level.

Regarding color, I think you're at least a decade late. Eminem released The Slim Shady LP in 1999. Then you got Beastie Boys, Aesop Rock, El-P, Atmosphere, etc.

By 1999 Beastie Boys had 5 LPs under their belt

Yeah, Beastie Boys are huge, but Eminem is a superstar.

I'm just pointing out what the perception might be which caused the author to pick that headline. Plus, really you can only pick a handful of successful white rappers, for the level of success we're talking about here. Black rappers are far and away the majority.

Let's not forget 3rd Bass, Cypress Hill, House of Pain, etc. White rappers have been around forever; to act like they're some sort of new or even remotely rare phenomenon is kind of silly at this point.

White rappers aren't exactly some crazy, new phenomenon. Vanilla Ice, Eminem, Everlast, The Beastie Boys, MC Frontalot, etc, several of them have been hugely popular. I don't think mentioning race is useful.

When I saw the headline I guessed Macklemore so from an information theoretic sense it helped me out. Although I'm a face recognition researcher who has written ethnicity detectors so maybe I'm biased.

Probably because of Jay-Z start of his career selling CDs from his car and then making Roc-a-fella?

I'd say because it's even more difficult for a white rapper to make it big in the industry. It's one more hurdle they had to overcome.

I don't think this was ever the case for white rappers.

Especially because of the content of his music, some of which is extremely progressive for the genre.

It's relevant because he likely wouldn't have been signed and promoted in the recording industry of yesteryear.

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